The present invention relates to vehicular road or highway expansion joints and, in particular, to elastic cover strip assemblies, which seal the gap between abutting road sections and the means for securing the same directly to the base of the roadway.
It has been known from German Pat. No. 2,155,651 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,324,774 to provide an expansion joint assembly comprising an elongated strip having fastening elements vulcanized to the opposite longitudinal edges which elements are capable of being screwed or bolted to connecting sections, anchored in the concrete substructure of a road. Such a construction suffers from the fact that the screw connections are cumbersome to assemble under field conditions, and in addition require an exact alignment in fitting of the hole spacings therein for the accommodation of the screws or bolts. Further, it is practically impossible to obtain a secure seal against water and moisture. Lastly, in order to remove the assembly, it is necessary to destroy the surrounding paving in order to remove the screws.
German Patent disclosure 2,011,822 wedges bent portions of the elastomeric strip into grooves formed along the edge of the abutting roadway sections. While this kind of edge connection facilitates the removal of the strip, such strips are limited with respect to their load carrying capacity. In this connection, it is also known from the German Patent disclosure 1,784,675 to replace the wedges by cables threaded into holes along the edges of the strip which cables are secured within the groove along the substructure edge. This latter construction also has a low load carrying capacity and in addition is difficult to assemble and to disassemble.
The present invention overcomes these disadvantages by providing an expansion joint assembly comprising an elongated elastomeric covered strip which may be easily assembled and disassembled from the connection with the roadway subbase and which has a particularly strong reinforced are capable of withstanding high traffic loads.